The Chambers Institution is a municipal structure in the High Street in

Peebles Peebles () is a town in the Scottish Borders, Scotland. It was historically a royal burgh and the county town of Peeblesshire. According to the United Kingdom census, 2011, 2011 census, the population was 8,376 and the estimated population in ...

, Scotland. The structure, which was designed to accommodate a library, a museum, an art gallery and Peebles Burgh Hall, is a Category A

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

History

The first municipal building in the town was a

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

tolbooth A tolbooth or town house was the main municipal building of a Scotland, Scottish burgh, from medieval times until the 19th century. The tolbooth usually provided a council meeting chamber, a court house and a jail. The tolbooth was one of th ...

which stood on the south side of the Eddleston Water near the Bridgegate and which dated back to the 15th century. By the early 17th century, the tollbooth was in a dilapidated state. The second municipal building was a structure known as The Steeple which stood on the north side of the High Street adjacent to Cuddy Bridge and which was completed between 1488 and 1496: it served as the town jail and meeting place of the burgh council until the mid-18th century. This in turn was replaced by a third municipal building, the Peebles Town House, on the south side of the High Street, which was completed in 1753. The fourth and current municipal building on the south side of the High Street started life as a domestic property in the 16th century. It belonged to the Cross Kirk and was known as the Dean's House before being acquired by

John Hay, 1st Earl of Tweeddale John Hay, 1st Earl of Tweeddale (1593–1653) was a Scottish aristocrat. Hay was the son of James Hay, 7th Lord Hay of Yester and Margaret Kerr or Ker, eldest daughter of Sir John Ker of Ferniehirst. He became the 8th Lord Hay of Yester in Feb ...

in 1624. In 1653, it passed to John Hay, 1st Marquess of Tweeddale and, in 1687, it was inherited by

William Douglas, 1st Duke of Queensberry William Douglas, 1st Duke of Queensberry PC (163728 March 1695), also 3rd Earl of Queensberry and 1st Marquess of Queensberry, was a Scottish politician.G. E. Cokayne; with Vicary Gibbs, H.A. Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, Duncan Warrand and L ...

who made it available as a lodging to his son, William Douglas, 1st Earl of March. After the building, known by this time as the Queensberry Lodging, had passed down the Queensberry line through much of the 18th century,

William Douglas, 4th Duke of Queensberry William Douglas, 4th Duke of Queensberry, (16 December 172423 December 1810) was a Scottish noble landowner. He was popularly known as Old Q and was reputed as a high-stakes gambler. In 1799 he was estimated the eighth-wealthiest man (or small ...

sold it to the provost, Dr James Reid, in 1781. It then remained in the Reid family until it was acquired by the publisher, William Chambers, in 1857. Over the next few years, Chambers remodelled the building and its grounds to provide facilities for the social improvement of the town. The remodelled structure was designed by John Paris in the

Scottish baronial style Scottish baronial or Scots baronial is an architectural style of 19th-century Gothic Revival which revived the forms and ornaments of historical architecture of Scotland in the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period. Reminiscent of Scot ...

, built with a

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and ...

finish and was officially opened on 8 August 1859. The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage with six bays facing onto the High Street. The first bay was fenestrated with single windows on all three floors and was gabled; the second bay, which was recessed on the upper floors, was fenestrated by a five-light transomed window on the ground floor, by a single window on the first floor and by a

dormer A dormer is a roofed structure, often containing a window, that projects vertically beyond the plane of a Roof pitch, pitched roof. A dormer window (also called ''dormer'') is a form of roof window. Dormers are commonly used to increase the ...

window on the second floor. The central section of three bays featured a

pend In Scotland, a Pend is a passageway through a building, often from a street through to a courtyard or 'back court', and may be for both vehicles and pedestrian access or exclusively pedestrians. The term "common pend" can often be found in desc ...

and a large

bay window A bay window is a window space projecting outward from the main walls of a building and forming a bay in a room. A bow window is a form of bay with a curve rather than angular facets; an oriel window is a bay window that does not touch the g ...

on the ground floor: the section was fenestrated with single windows on the first floor and dormer windows on the second floor and featured a

bartizan A bartizan (an alteration of ''bratticing''), also called a guerite, ''garita'', or ''échauguette'', or spelled bartisan, is an overhanging turret projecting from the walls of late-medieval and early-modern fortifications from the early 14th c ...

at the top left corner. The last bay, which was projected forward, took the form of a four-stage tower with an

ogee An ogee ( ) is an object, element, or curve—often seen in architecture and building trades—that has a serpentine- or extended S-shape (Sigmoid curve, sigmoid). Ogees consist of a "double curve", the combination of two semicircle, semicircula ...

-shaped roof. The pend led to a courtyard: it was bounded on the north side by the original building, which accommodated a library, on the west side by a new structure, which accommodated a museum and an art gallery, and on the south side by a new burgh hall. Ownership of the complex passed to the burgh council in 1911. The burgh council then took up an offer by the Scottish-American,

Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie ( , ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the History of the iron and steel industry in the United States, American steel industry in the late ...

, to finance a five-bay extension to the west. The extension was built to a design by

George Washington Browne Sir George Washington Browne (21 September 1853 – 15 June 1939) was a Scotland, Scottish architect. He was born in Glasgow, and trained there and in London. He spent most of his career in Edinburgh, although his work can be found throughout ...

and completed in 1911. Fenestrated with

cross-window A cross-window is a window whose lights are defined by a mullion and a transom, forming a cross.Curl, James Stevens (2006). ''Oxford Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture'', 2nd ed., OUP, Oxford and New York, p. 214. . The Late ...

s on the first floor and castellated along the roof, the extension incorporated shops on the ground floor and additional library space on the first floor. A memorial to commemorate the lives of local service personnel who died in the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, designed by Burnett Napier Henderson Orphoot in the form of a

hexagon In geometry, a hexagon (from Greek , , meaning "six", and , , meaning "corner, angle") is a six-sided polygon. The total of the internal angles of any simple (non-self-intersecting) hexagon is 720°. Regular hexagon A regular hexagon is de ...

pavilion In architecture, ''pavilion'' has several meanings; * It may be a subsidiary building that is either positioned separately or as an attachment to a main building. Often it is associated with pleasure. In palaces and traditional mansions of Asia ...

with an ogee-shaped roof, was unveiled in the courtyard in 1922. The burgh hall continued to serve as the meeting place of the burgh council for much of the 20th century, but ceased to be the local seat of government after the enlarged Tweeddale District Council was formed at the former County Hall in Rosetta Road in 1975. In 1990, a new room was opened in the museum to display friezes donated by William Chambers which reproduced sections of the

Elgin Marbles The Elgin Marbles ( ) are a collection of Ancient Greek sculptures from the Parthenon and other structures from the Acropolis of Athens, removed from Ottoman Greece in the early 19th century and shipped to Britain by agents of Thomas Bruce, 7 ...

, sculpted by

Phidias Phidias or Pheidias (; , ''Pheidias''; ) was an Ancient Greek sculptor, painter, and architect, active in the 5th century BC. His Statue of Zeus at Olympia was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Phidias also designed the statues of ...

and displayed in the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

, and the whole of the "Triumph of Alexander", sculpted by

Bertel Thorvaldsen Albert Bertel Thorvaldsen (; sometimes given as Thorwaldsen; 19 November 1770 – 24 March 1844) was a Danes, Danish-Icelanders, Icelandic Sculpture, sculptor and medallist, medalist of international fame, who spent most of his life (1797–183 ...

and displayed in the

Quirinal Palace The Quirinal Palace ( ) is a historic building in Rome, Italy, the main official residence of the President of Italy, President of the Italian Republic, together with Villa Rosebery in Naples and the Tenuta di Castelporziano, an estate on the outs ...

Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 19268 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. ...

visited the building to open the John Buchan Museum, a new part of the Chambers Institution, in July 2013. Works of Art in the art gallery include a portrait by John A. Horsburgh of William Chambers, a portrait by Colvin Smith of the poet,

Sir Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European literature, European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'' (18 ...

, and a portrait by Edward Arthur Walton of the industrialist, Sir Walter Thorburn.

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1859 Category A listed buildings in the Scottish Borders City chambers and town halls in Scotland Peebles Local museums in Scotland Museums in the Scottish Borders Art museums and galleries in the Scottish Borders

History

See also

References